Our 5th visit to the Stately Home

[Nabster]

Here we go again.

[oneplusone]

vonsudenfed, I like your description here:"free-floating anxiety' (c my old therapist) that dreadful sense of there being an exam or something terrible just over the horizon." That is exactly how i used to feel all the time. Not so much now. Hope it's due to my progress on this 'upward spiral'. Your spiral description is often how i view my journey. I do go back to the same issues over and again, but each time from a different angle and fresh awareness and self insight.

[oneplusone]

Nabster, I am sorry, I am not up to date with your situation. What or whom do you wish you could leave?

[Nabster]

life

[oneplusone]

Nabster, I think i know how you feel. I have been there. Don't know how I got through it. I just clung on somehow. At times I think i was literally hanging on by a thread. I wish I could say more to help you.

[Nabster]

I don't know if I want to hang on but I know how much my husband loves me and have hurt him enough already.

[oneplusone]

Nabster I can only speak for myself. I didn't think i wanted to hang on. But looking back now i think there was something inside me that wanted to live, to fight, to survive, and I think that instinct was strong enough to carry me through the darkest times of my life.

[Nabster]

I want to live as I want Grand children and to see my kids grow older and be in our rocking chairs, me and hubby, eating fish and chips and dribbling and not hearing each other but life scares me and I don't think I am up to it.

[oneplusone]

The time i was talking about was a long time ago, around 11 years ago but i remember it clearly. I won't go into all the details, but i felt utterly and totally alone, despite still having my 'family' in my life. I was at rock bottom and it sounds silly now, but in my mind i had fixed a date when i was going to end it all. But that day came and went and I did nothing. I honestly don't know why i didn't end it all. I really felt i had nothing to live for. But, like i said, i think something inside me made me carry on, some instinct for survival perhaps, i really don't know.

[oneplusone]

Nabster, what scares you? What aspects of your life/future scare you?

[Nabster]

I feel my husband and kids would be better off without them but I love them so much.

[Nabster]

It scares me that I will never get better. It scares me that I will have to say things and opening up makes me feel vunerable as I don't know where it will end.

[oneplusone]

Nabster, again, I think i know how you feel. I have certainly felt like that many times.

[oneplusone]

Nabster it is hard. There is no denying that opening up your past and sorting it out and unravelling the mess is hard and painful. I don't know how i have endured the pain sometimes. But i have somehow. And so can you. And everyone here will help you every step of the way.

[Nabster]

I know in my head what I need to do, I am a bright kid and an analyst, but I don't know why I can't do it and I feel a pain at the moment in my chest like I have been hit.

[oneplusone]

Nabster, I have to go now. Do you have anyone with you? Or somebody you can call? I hope somebody will be along shortly on this thread as I have to go to DD's school for a meeting.

[Nabster]

I have to go too to get the kids and then to MIL for my youngest. SHe will give them tea and DH is late home tonight. No one to talk too unfortunately.

[beldaran]

Nabster, i know im only new here but i wanted to send you a big hug and let you that you are not alone.

[Nabster]

Thank you, b.

In RL I feel alone other than for my DH and I feel I have put enough on him and he has enough on with work.

[roseability]

Nabster - Please talk to us. I am sure many of us have felt like 'getting out'

AN - Your post about the desire for fame and recognition struck a chord. I too used to seek attention from men, even when I first started dating my DH. I have matured now and realise whilst it is normal to be flattered by compliments, I don't need men to look at me to be attractive. We all have individual beauty. It often bothers me that somehow motherhood just doesn't seem enough, that I need to excel at something, but your post explains beautifully why it is enough and more. Again this is my parent's attitude internalised.

Oneplusone - again your posts are heartbreaking. But believe me your parents have not got off scot free. They have lost a beautiful daughter and grandchildren. I don't believe any mother is truly happy when her children have been alienated. Linking back to AN's post, it is natural and fulfilling to want to be a mother. Your mother has failed this basic human function and she will be unhappy (even subconsciously) because of that. She may continue to play the perfect mother role because she doesn't have the emotional intelligence or depth to look inside herself. Despite your difficulties with your daughter, you are doing this. You are already a much better mother.

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

Hey Nabster,

Re your comment:-

"In RL I feel alone other than for my DH and I feel I have put enough on him and he has enough on with work".

Know that feeling too believe me but if he's anything like my H (the saintly being that he is) he will listen to you. I often felt like I was not waving but drowning particularly in the early years when my DS was a toddler. God the recurring dreams I used to have - I always wanted to disappear.

Life is sometimes scary and it certainly does suck on occasion but there are many good bits in your life as there are in mine. You'll be okay, honestly you will. What you're going through is painful but you'll come out the other side, you will go through that dark valley. You have what your parents never ever will have - insight and that is itself powerful.

Yours in solidarity and stripey socks (as a tribute to Ally)

Attila

[Nabster]

I have been depressed for so long, and have had extra upsets for quite a while now, that I feel there is no way out or rather I don't know what to do. Todays mess up with my appointment hasn't helped at all.

[PinkyMinxy]

Nabster, please keep talking. I have found it very helpful. I too have often felt like walking away from life- that everyone would be better off without me. But my DH and my DC keep me here- abandoning them would be cruel.

I get shockinbg anxiety abotu things. Friend came over for tea and cake on saturday and I was in a right state all day before she came. Panic about the house, about what I had intende to do, an overwhelming sonse of ineptitude.

It is only now I am able to identify what the feelings are about. It helped a lot.

[Nabster]

I would never leave my husband and family but part of me resents that I can't. Does that make me sound awful?

[smithfield]

Nabster,

Depression makes you want to be seperate, alone, away from anything and everybody. As others have said I know that feeling too.

Having been there, I know whatever I tell you at the moment, i,e It gets better, you can feel better etc... will just bounce of your brain. When you feel this lost and alone you cant imagine feeling any better.

I can tell you that at one of my lowest points to date this thread pulled me through.

Keep talking to us. We all care and want to listen to you.

What appointment did you miss today? Is that what has triggered this or is there anything else?

[PinkyMinxy]

oneplusone I can relate to your feeling of being the outcast of the family. I became very withdrawn and confused in my early teens, and I can only wonder at what sort of tripe my mother has spouted about me over the years. I do not 'fit in' at family events.

I have tried on a few occasions to get together independantly with members of my family, but always my mum finds out and finds some way of putting a stop to it. Often she just invites herself to visit said relative on the smae date, and makes out she can't do any other time, so I have to postpone my plans.